Luka Doncic's Mavs Seek Get Right Game Against Surging Heat

The Mavs have lost five of their last six games despite historic production from Luka Doncic. Can they bounce back against the Heat?

DALLAS — Entering Thursday's matchup against the Miami Heat, the Dallas Mavericks have lost five of their six last games. Most recently, coming off a 137-120 loss against the Indiana Pacers, marking a new low for the team's poor defensive execution amid already being the NBA's worst unit on that end since the All-Star break. 

Unlike the Mavs, Miami has been on a roll lately, achieving a victory in five of six games since the All-Star break, defeating the Detroit Pistons 118-110 on Tuesday. Jimmy Butler set the tone with 26 points, with Bam Adebayo and Duncan Robinson, adding 18 points. Robinson has been stepping up in the absence of Tyler Herro, who will remain sidelined due to a foot injury.

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Heat coach Erik Spoelstra praised Robinson's dedication to player development, emphasizing the countless hours he puts in behind the scenes. Robinson has scored in double figures in four consecutive games. 

"The one thing I will say about Duncan is he puts in a crazy amount of time behind the scenes and player development," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. "All of these things he's been working on, we encourage it. The coaches are with him hours on end working on all these moves."

Alongside Robinson, Caleb Martin has also been making significant contributions, with Tuesday's game marking his third consecutive double-digit scoring performance and fourth in the last five games. Despite coming off the bench in the past four games, Martin has averaged 13.5 points.

The Mavs continue to receive dynamic production from Luka Doncic, who is coming off a fourth consecutive 30-point triple-double by recording 39 points, 11 assists, and 10 rebounds against the Pacers. He made history by joining Oscar Robertson and Russell Westbrook as the only players to record four straight 30-point triple-doubles. However, the Mavs rank 30th in defensive rating since the All-Star break. 

I don’t know, actually. But we know we’ve got to fix it," Doncic said about fixing the Mavs' defense. 

The Mavs felt they had tried "everything" defensively against the Pacers, but proved unable to get the job done. Dallas intended to review film of its shortcomings against Indiana in hopes of having a better outing against Miami next game. 

“Yeah, well, we tried everything. We switched, switched to hit, we went zone, sometimes – give them credit,' Mavs coach Jason Kidd said. "They’re one of the best offensive teams in the league. And so, for us, it’s about the rotations, not giving up the corner 3 – which we have been here, so we’ll go back, look at the film, and see what we can do better."

Something to monitor will be the Mavs' potential changes that Kidd hinted at potentially making against the Heat. Possible differences in the starting lineup, rotation size, and minutes were mentioned as potentially being subject to adjustments.

"We can fix this. We’ll be ready for Thursday," Kidd said. "We’ve got a lot of games left, but the personnel, we can look at different rotations. We can look at different starting lineups. We’ve talked about that before the game. We have options, and we’ll explore those.”

As the Heat and the Mavs prepare to face off, the Mavs remain in major need of showing progress defensively. If the team continues to struggle on that end while racking up losses, they risk a slide to the bottom of the Western Conference play-in picture with questions about coaching changes only getting louder.